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Parti Démocratique Libre
The Free Democratic Party (Parti Démocratique Libre) is a civil libertarian political party within the United Kingdom of Great Rildanor and of Noumond, founded in 2835 by Labonne political activist Julien Naudin. The PDL promotes progressive social and moderate laissez-faire economic policies. The party discontinued national campaigning in 2843. Ideology and Platform The Free Democratic Party's ideology draws heavily from classical liberalism and social democracy. In general, the PDL supports social liberalism and moderate economic liberalism. The PDL supports strong civil liberties, such as the rights to privacy, freedom of expression, and personal property. The PDL believes that the government must be heavily limited from infringing on the rights of its people. Due to the party's strong support towards the universal protection of civil liberties, the PDL subsequently supports other progressive causes such as: gay rights, sexual and reproductive rights, immigrant rights, disabled rights, and workers' rights. In contrast to many market liberals, the PDL supports reasonable market regulations and social welfare such as the public school and health care systems. The PDL supports a progressive, not proportional, income tax system. Social policies The Free Democrats are social liberals. They generally support strong political and social rights, originating from classical liberal philosophy. Unlike many classical liberals, the Free Democrats incorporate the concept of positive liberty into their interpretation of rights. The party supports liberal policies to issues concerning free speech, privacy, and personal choice. The PDL opposes hate speech laws, noting that they criminalize a person's thought and limits their right to freedom of expression. To allow only accepted opinions, according to the PDL, implies a lack of true free speech. The PDL, as a liberal party, naturally supports strong private property rights. Opposition to expanding eminent domain laws is fairly strong among most wings of the party. The party also supports the citizen's right to self-defense and has in the past pushed to liberalize gun control and concealed carry laws, while maintaining basic regulations to ensure public safety. The PDL staunchly defends the right to life, and as such it opposes capital punishment. The Free Democrats are also progressives. They embrace multiculturalism, tolerance, social justice, and equality regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, or creed. The PDL believes that a nation is defined by the people who live and make a livelihood there, not by a person's ethnicity or lifestyle. Any person who lives in Rildanor can contribute to the nation culturally and economically, regardless of their origin. Diversity, according to the PDL, enriches a nation, providing all citizens (and legal aliens) with a wide variety of cultural alternatives to share with others, appreciate, or adopt for themselves. It is this mixing and mingling of cultures that strengthens Rildanor: through the free exchange of ideas, everyone involved can work to improve themselves. For example: one culture has a certain way of preparing a meal, different from another. In a culturally open and tolerant nations, a person from each culture could share their own personal techniques in preparing the meal. One person may prefer some aspects of that other culture's way of preparing that meal and adopt that aspect into their own. Or, they could now cook the meal in two different ways, perhaps each way producing a subtle but noticeable difference in taste, smell, look, et cetera. The net result is a wider variety of choices. Given this description, the Free Democrats are naturally supportive of relatively open immigration and toleration of foreign and sub-cultures. While the PDL supports free speech, this does not imply they support the moral crusades of social conservatism. Social conservatives are entitled to speak their minds, but the PDL will also exercise its right to speak its mind against social conservatism. Economic policies The Free Democrats are moderate market liberals. The PDL borrows ideology from both economic liberalism and social democracy, producing a hybrid philosophy that promotes free markets with reasonable regulations to minimize negative externalities. Additionally, state intervention into the economy is acceptable if markets cannot fairly and efficiently distribute an essential public good, such as health care or education. Concerning international trade, the PDL is fairly pro-free trade with certain exceptions to protect the domestic sector and to minimize exploitation of poorer countries. The PDL believes that the free market is fairly efficient at distributing most goods equitable, and overall, it promotes real economic growth. Thus the PDL supports a mostly free market economy, with certain regulations to eliminate negative externalities. Free markets work, the PDL says, but like any complicated system, they require oversight. A free market 'gone wild' does not necessarily ensure the mutual benefit of all members of society. Unregulated markets can lead to market failure, monopoly, and large income inequality. When policies are enacted to minimize such harmful effects, markets thrive and economic prosperity ensues. While there is disagreement over exactly what sector requires what amount of regulation, the Free Democrats generally agree that two essential areas should not fall prey to market forces: education and health care. While it is true that the PDL supports the existence of private education institutions and health care providers, the PDL explicitly supports well-funded public education and health care systems. Some PDL supporters believe these private institutions also require regulation to ensure adequate service (since these are such essential goods), while others believe that a strong public option will encourage private providers to provide quality, otherwise potential customers can easily choose to utilize the public option at will, and thus regulation will provide no direct benefit, only increasing bureaucracy. On issues of taxation and international trade, the PDL again follows a mixed policy to maintain social health and still promote economic growth. The PDL supports a progressive income tax system, as well as taxes on corporations and sales taxes on luxury items. The state provides a safe, orderly environment for businesses and the wealthy to make and invest money, and as the biggest benefactors of the state's stability-providing services, they are expected to return their fair share to society. The PDL also believes that free trade is economically beneficial and can benefit both nations involved. However, in certain circumstances, it is acceptable to adopt protectionist or fair trade policies (even if only temporarily). These circumstances include: economic crisis, protection of certain promising infant industries, and prevention of exploitation towards poorer nations. The issue of the degree of market regulation is major cleavage among the various internal factions within the PDL. Free market liberals campaign for less regulation, while social democrats campaign for more regulation. Most PDL supporters find themselves between the two factions, and this moderate group is the intended PDL voter base. Foreign policy The Free Democrats place emphasis on finding peaceful, diplomatic solutions to foreign disputes before military action. According to the PDL, military interventionism typically negatively affects both nations in question, economically and socially. Wars require a shift in economic focus, thus the growth of some industries will be highly neglected as efforts are diverted towards advancing war technologies and the continuation of the war. The Free Democrats also note the disturbing influence the military-industrial complex has on international relations, believing they tend to support unnecessary war for private profit. Thus a diplomacy-first approach must always be taken, lest the influence of private interests becomes too ingrained in the nation's foreign policies. While the PDL is skeptical of military unilateralism and interventionism, it opposes isolationism and supports international cooperation. The PDL firmly supports the democratic peace theory. Political Factions The Free Democratic Party attempts to appeal to the moderate social and economic liberal. While its social policies are generally much more progressive than some other left-leaning parties, the party is willing to make compromises and supports incremental change if necessary. On economic policies, the party can appeal to both social democrats and market liberals, as it supports policies from both philosophies to varying degrees. The mainstream PDL attempts to appeal to moderates on economic issues. Given the party's willingness to compromise and moderate, and its drawing of ideology from different political philosophies, several factions have arisen internally. While there is general unity over several issues, the factions still compete for political power within the party's own internal structure. Market Liberals The market liberals concentrate on issues regarding market regulation. Their primary concern is economic: they may be moderately or extremely socially liberal, but social issues have a lower priority to them than economic ones. The market liberals tend to believe that at least a basic safety net is required, but often disagree what that minimum threshold with the social democrat faction. Very few market liberals are socially conservative, as socially conservative economic liberal alternatives are already often available. Economic Left/Right: Center-right Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: Center-left Social Democrats The social democrats concentrate on social justice and equality. They support stronger market regulations, but oppose socialism and other radical left philosophies, citing them as undemocratic, inefficient, impractical, or inherently authoritarian. Thus the social democrats believe that a mixed economy is the optimal solution: untamed markets produce negative externalities, no markets produce negative economic growth, but tamed markets produce both growth and limit externalities. Generally, the social democrats favor more regulation than the mainstream market liberal-social democrat hybrid alternative that the PDL attempts to represent. Social democrats tend to be socially liberal, though they can vary from moderately to extremely liberal. Economic Left/Right: Left Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: Left/center-left Free Democrats The eponymous free democrats are a hybrid of the market liberal and the social democrat. They are far more centrist on economic issues than either of the other political factions. The Free Democrats, for example, support deregulation (but not complete) of the energy industry. They also support expanding employers' rights to fire employees, but support regulations to ensure employees' are not unfairly fired. While the Free Democrats believe in the social betterment of society through policies that encourage equality of opportunity (for example positive discrimination/affirmative action), they are far less likely to believe that these changes should be implemented rapidly, and they find some proposals by leftist parties to be far too expansive. Economic Left/Right: Center-left Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: Left/center-left Party Organization The party maintains a central leadership, selected through a double-ballot majority election. Local elections are held to select local officials. Local elections are held at the regional, county, and city-level. There are major party offices established in all the main cities, and a party headquarters exists in each of the five cantons. The central headquarters is in Labonne. There may be other, smaller offices established in smaller towns or less populated counties. The party runs candidates in both national senate elections and local assemblies. The party is led by the President of the Free Democratic Party. The President serves six-year terms, with no term limits. Candidates are nominated at a national caucus every six years. It is allowable for a write-in candidate to be elected President, so long as he meets the minimal requirements: a registered PDL member with no obvious ties to competing parties. The President will nominate a cabinet, those which the party will nominate to the national cabinet. Cabinets must be approved through an instant-runoff election whereby the President usually nominates 3-4 cabinets. If none of these cabinets are acceptable (there is no vote choice), then alternatives must be proposed. The President is considered to be the party's Head of State nominee. Regional party structure is similar: each canton elects its own regional president who will nominate a cabinet of his or her own. However, the rules regarding the approval of the cabinet vary: in some cantons, this can be done through an approval of a national caucus consisting of high-ranking Free Democratic politicians from the region, or it can be done through an instant-runoff election, or a plurality-based system, or any electorally based method. The Free Democrats allow local autonomy among local organizers to establish their cabinets appropriately. Since the PDL supports grassroots democracy, instant-runoff based systems are generally favored. It is also possible for each cabinet member to be individually approved through an election, though the logistics of holding multiple elections for perhaps several cabinet seats can increase significantly, thus discouraging this system among many local PDL organizations. Category:Political parties in Rildanor Category:Rildanor